Author Notes:

Annoyingly enough lighting was tough in this scene. You'd think I could just use Sun-Sky and point the sun through the door, but no. Doing that left the inside of the room too dark, and frustratingly, Iray does not allow any other lights to be used with Sun-Sky (it ignores them). So I had to use an HDRI sun dome to allow me to put some interior lights. The HDRI is fast but the inside lights slowed down the renders a lot. Very annoying. However, I like the way it turned out, in the end.

I had to ask myself this as I wrote the scene. I didn't plan the dialogue out ahead of time (I never do, because I think it turns out more natural this way), so when I wrote him saying 'what do I get?' I did not know what I was going to have him ask for. When I wrote the next couple pages the answer was pretty obvious... but I'm curious what others think he would/should ask for in exchange for his silence.

The fact that the notion seems to have occurred to him spontaneously suggests he might not have anything in mind -- some kids, sensing advantage, just ask for 'something good' and wait to see what the other party offers. That way they are less likely to ask for too much or too little. Also, we don't really know if they ever had similar exchanges when Abby was non-super. If there was prior history of Abby negotiating favors for (for instance) a special batch of cookies, or a trip to the library (or the game store), then what he'll ask for will likely be more of the same, only bigger. (Because this secret is bigger). Or maybe assuming some of his chores for a period of time.

I agree that flight time is a likely request. A souvenir or trophy of some kind from one of her super fights might be a possibility. Or an introduction to another, well-established superhero that T.J. expects her to get to know. (Though that could also have secret ID ramifications, so might well get turned down.) "Can you get me Batman's autograph?", or the equivalent.

He seems to be public-image driven, at the moment, so he might request a celebrity appearance on his behalf ... she has to wave at him while doing a flyby at his school in front of all his friends, even if she doesn't acknowledge any actual relationship. I don't think he'd want to be a sidekick, but he might relish the role of "Jimmy Olsen, Superman's Pal".

The role of "Jimmy Olsen, Superman's Pal" is still pretty close to the top of the villain's "kidnap this person as a hostage" list. Of course, mostly this is because villains don't really understand how the noble heroes think - they could pretty much kidnap any random person and the hero would come rushing. Really, kidnapping someone close to the hero is dangerous, if you do slip up and hurt/kill your hostage, there's a fair chance the hero will snap and forget about his "do not kill the villain" rule. But villains are stupid people. These are the same guys that hold the city for a $50mil ransom with their death ray, when they could just sell the death ray design legally to some government for $500mil.

OK folks. So I have had a little disaster. The high-end laptop I used to do this comic for the last 18 months or so has prematurely kicked the bucket. As far as I can tell it is a door stop at this point.

I have everything backed up and am trying feverishly to locate and restore the backed up files onto my 6 year old dino desktop, but in the mean time I need to buy a new computer, move everything to the new one, and start up again. This may lead to a hiatus after issue 4... depending on how quickly I can recover.

UPDATE: I was able to rez the laptop this morning with a Ring of Three Wishes. So... seems like I have recovered, no need to buy a new rig (maybe). We'll see how the rez'ed laptop works and whether it turns into an undead zombie or not...